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So one of the main reasons I was roped into this position (okay, okay, I volunteered) was to provide a male perspective into the world of dating/love/relationships and so on. Well I’ve done that in many areas, but I haven’t yet touched on actual relationships. That may stem from the fact that prior to starting writing here (a few weeks in fact) I went through a breakup from a relationship that had spanned multiple years. So it’s time to put some of that story out there and let you ladies know just where the male mind travels to over the course of a breakup.

First of all, I guess I need to put some of the details of my split out there. I’ll make this quick and neutral as possible, because as with any relationship, you can make a novel out of your side of story. This girl (I promise this is the nicest word I can call her, that Kailey will let me post on here), was actually really nice at first and we were each other’s firsts for just about everything. The thing is, she wound up losing trust in me because of certain situations- some I deserved and others that were not my fault. Our biggest problem was her being unable to let those situations go, especially when she wanted to “win” an argument. However as I told you guys in my last post, I’m a “Ted” when I fall for a girl, I’ll do whatever it takes to make it work. I’m not a quitter… even when I should be. Eventually our problems lead to a break-up in the dead of winter (how effing poetic) that was her idea (but really should have been mine at least a few months beforehand). And now I’ll get into the nitty gritty, so get your notepads out.

*Note: I’ll try and keep cursing to a minimum for this post, although in reality at this time cursing is an art form we choose to express ourselves in. Also in this section I’ll try and generalize first, then give more specific examples from my own breakup. Please keep in mind this is an extreme generalization, every situation is unique and different, even if we don’t want to admit it.

THE STEPS OF GETTING OVER HER:

step 1) The first step for men, whether we initiated the split or not, is telling ourselves that we didn’t need that b*!^* anyways. We distance ourselves first, because, well, that’s what you need to do. For me, this was realizing and admitting to myself that I had been preparing for this moment and postponing it for months.

step 2) The second step is admitting to both yourself and your friends that it’s time to move on. These are the people that have foreseen the break up since the first few signs- Whether that was hours or months ago they were there to recognize it and they’re your support system that will keep you (relatively) sane for the foreseeable future. I still remember telling my friends about my breakup… immediately before moving on to the next step….

step 3) BOOZE, BEER, and WHATEVER WETS YOUR WHISTLE. This can often be mostly your friends doing, at least it was in my case. It may be that we were in college and that’s what we did, but as soon as that breakup happened we were drinking the night away. This step is also important because it also involves hitting on other girls. This is a great time, a time where you “do you”, but it’s not a true moving on stage yet sadly. It’s more about proving that life exists outside of the old relationship.

step 4)…. Sighhhh Step frickin’ (Kailey you owe me because this is the least amount cursing I’ve done when talking about this) four, doesn’t always occur but when it does it’s awful. Step four is fallback- meaning you’re texting your ex and trying to close things out. Sometimes you do just that, text and close things out. Other times (and my break up falls in this space), it complicates things and you wind up in her bed roughly 5 times in a 3 month span. Hmm, That’s about right, but who’s counting? But remember, this isn’t a good thing, because it means you debate the relationship and you’ll likely wind up a conversation away from being back in it. This is scary for many reasons once you go onto….

step 5) moving on. The bad news is that if you went through step 4 it essentially means you’ll have what amounts to a second breakup: Where you stop hooking up and basically end things for good. It’s much worse than the first breakup, but at least it ends things for real. Which is bad because it hurts even worse than the first time, but ride it out because most likely you’ll discover you were right about the outcome in step one, it’s time to move on from that girl.

So there it is, the VERY, VERY BASIC steps of a breakup from a male’s perspective. The details of everything make it much more complicated than this is really, but for the most part that’s roughly what we are going through when it comes to this stuff.

Have you ever weathered a soul crushing mind numbing break up? What are your recovery tactics?

I know, I know, you probably saw it coming, were rooting for us, or something like that. Or maybe you’re just like uhhhhh whatever I’m just reading this while waiting for my nails to dry and eating nutella so I didn’t see this coming but I don’t really care.

And that’s fine too.

I’m really sorry this has turned into a blog about my life and the daily happenings. I didn’t really mean for that to happen. I guess I just realized that little nuggets of wisdom don’t always come to me on the fly, and when T and I were broken up it was really hard for me to preach about relationships too much. You know what I mean?

So if you’re looking to hear how it happened- long story short: we love each other, life without each other sucked, I’m a hot mess (as you probably already know), and things finally started turning around. I kind of had a quarter life crisis, I’m 21 now so I’m allowed.

..sidenote- these two girls behind me in class last week were complaining about how they were getting “so old” because one of them was turning 19. uhhhh heyyy uhhhhh.. you’re still a teenager.

back to the story.

Truth is, we’ve been talking for a while now and then I finally put on my big girl pants and asked him to be my boyfriend again about a week ago. Lucky for me, he said yes. 🙂 and he’s been bugging me to blog about it…. last night he was all “kailey, we’re going to be 85 years old and you’re going to be like ‘hey blogggers, I know I haven’t posted in 64 years but T and I are back together!!! but it’s a bittersweet day because he died yesterday.”

Okay T, way to be dramatic. And depressing. Besides, by the time we’re that old I’m sure there will be miracle drugs and people living to 120 so it probably won’t even be an issue.

So here it is. And he’s still young.. turning 21 tonight! I’m a cougar, don’t know if I mentioned that before. Always go for the youngins’

Fine, fine, he’s only 22 days younger than me.

(thought: Why is the gender-age thing so important? Why do so many girls only want to date guys older than them? They intimidate me. I know guys are supposed to be more immature than girls and blah blah blah. Whatever. It’s all how you pick them. Ladies, would you ever date someone younger than you? And to the men, would you date an older girl? How old is too old? Thoughts people. Deep thoughts.)

My best wishes to all of you college students who are taking/have taken/are about to start your finals! Summer is starting soon so I promise I will be posting some good relationship stuff again that can actually help you. hopefully.

I wasn’t sure what and when and if I would say anything about this anytime soon, but here we go…

T and I broke up.

I’m pretty sure those of you who read of my newly single status on facebook were trying to figure out what went wrong because my blog views shot WAY up right afterwards, and I’m not sure how i feel about that. In case you were wondering, my previous post- “the cycle of violence” has nothing to do with this or T. I wrote it a couple of years ago.

I initiated the break up and it was really really hard. I love him, but haven’t been as happy as I should be in the relationship lately. I already feel like a hypocrite because of my major and my blog and all that I believe about relationships… but I needed to do this right now. We’re both so young and have so many things to experience and people to meet before I can get to the point in my life where I’m ready for that level of commitment. I can still see us ending up together someday, but I don’t know the future. One of us could fall for someone else. I am being selfish, but I strongly believe in being in a good relationship with yourself before you bring someone else into your life. All I ask is that you please try not to make assumptions or judge us because you don’t know the whole story.

I want to take the time now to give a shout out to my best friend B (what is this, gossip girl?) for inspiring the title of this post. She told me the following: “A man and a woman are riding on a horse together, and then they break up. One of them is still on the horse and the other person gets off. Their only option is to walk back to the castle and start over.”

What does this mean for my blog?

I’m not quite sure yet. I still have some pieces that I’d like to share with you soon but I also have a really busy week so I’m not sure when that’ll happen. I also have considered taking a little hiatus from this so I can gather my thoughts privately. We’ll just have to see what’ll happen when I figure stuff out.

Thank you…

To my facebook friends/people who found out through other ways who messaged me or texted me. I felt an overwhelming amount of support and for that I am so grateful. ❤